Upcoming: Pennsylvania Women’s Upraising Rally
WoLF is hosting a public rally in Philadelphia on September 14th at the People’s Plaza in Independence Park to raise up women’s voices and demand an end to male violence against women and girls in all of its forms.
Featured speakers include:
Lierre Keith, WoLF Founder
Sharon Byrne, Executive Director
M. K. Fain, 4W and Spinster
Event Details:
Pennsylvania Women's Upraising
Saturday, Sep. 14th at 1 PM
The People's Plaza at 101 S. Independence Mall W
Philadelphia, PA 19106
We are inviting speakers on domestic violence, human trafficking, maternal mortality, and online violence. We’re also inviting elected state and local representatives who support ending violence against women and girls.
It will be an uplifting, peaceful protest - an ‘upraising’ of women’s voices to raise awareness and call in unity for the end of violence against women.
Our goal is to bring women from across Pennslyvania and neighboring states together in Philadelphia!
We encourage participating women to dress in white to stand in solidarity with women’s suffrage as we observe the 104th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted US women the right to vote.
violence against women is taking new forms.
Women may not recognize violence when they experience it. These are examples of how violence against women is taking on new forms:
Being choked during sex, and having it dismissed as ‘normal’ when you object.
Discovering your face has been superimposed or AI-generated in pornographic imagery.
Being ‘corrected’ by a partner who inflicted pain on you to make you do what they want.
Witnessing coercion of a woman or girl to do something she clearly doesn’t want to.
Being exposed to pornography that depicts violent sexual acts against women and girls.
Receiving harassment and angry communications from a man if you upset him, declined to date him, or declined sexual contact with him.
Verbal harassment with misogynistic slurs meant to demean women, e.g., “Karen,” a b*tch, c*nt, or sl*t
Your partner is withholding money or resources from you to control you.
Familial manipulation from a man who is using your children or other family members to control you.
Being catcalled or yelled at by a man when you’re walking down the street.
Social media harassment campaign to harm, cancel, deplatform, doxx, discredit, or silence you
Violence against women and girls now takes many forms: physical, sexual, verbal, economic, and intimidation. It is a violation of the human rights of women and girls.
As one of our main focus areas, WoLF seeks to abolish male violence against women and girls. We encourage organized resistance to rape culture, seek legal justice for survivors of male violence, and fight against the normalization of violent or degrading sexual practices, the eroticization of women’s suffering, and toxic relationships that limit the sovereignty of women and girls.
Unfortunately, as you read above, male violence is called so many different things that we might not see how pervasive and permissible it has become in our culture. There’s also a disastrously incorrect perception that male violence is only happening to a very small number of women. The examples above illustrate that it is ubiquitous, and every woman has a regrettably familiar story—every woman.
Worse, some look away from violence as inevitable for ‘some’ women because of their status, profession, or even where they live—be it conflict zones, ‘bad’ neighborhoods, or public housing. Male violence knows no restrictions; any woman or girl can be victimized, anywhere, anytime.
Violence against women and girls is never acceptable. When we condone violence against any woman, we are opening the door for violence against every woman.
Breaking the Silence
We must have honest conversations about male violence and raise up women’s voices. Many of the following facts are shameful, but not common knowledge:
In the US alone, men commit 79% of violent offenses, and men are responsible for nearly all (99%) sexual crimes.
Pregnant women and those who recently gave birth in the USA are 35% more likely to be victims of homicide than non-pregnant women. Guns were used in 68% of the homicides of pregnant and postpartum women in the US.
Pornography has become incredibly violent, featuring assaults on women, choking, rape, and human trafficking videos. Porn websites monetize rape, human trafficking, and child assault videos. When police contact PornHub to remove a video of a rape victim, the site is often non-responsive. Or the video pops up again on the same or another site, re-victimizing the woman all over again. Girls in UK emergency rooms have been presenting with choke marks and anal tears. They say their boyfriends tell them this is how sex is performed, from watching porn, and the girls think there is something wrong with them because they don’t like it.
Online violence against women and girls leads to violence in real life as much as 20% of the time. Elected women receive 10 times the online violence their male counterparts do. Elected women of color receive 84% more online abuse than their white women counterparts.
90% of incarcerated women experienced domestic violence and/or sexual assault before entering the criminal-justice system.
Women increasingly receive threatening or sexually explicit messages on social media, through texting, and other forms from men.
Fake pornographic images are created using a girl or woman’s face, imposed with pornographic body images, and circulated on social media. In some jurisdictions and schools, police, school administrators, and parents are at a loss to remedy this, while these images can live online years into the future, traumatizing a girl over and over again.
Sex trafficking and prostitution are barely distinguishable from each other. Yet, few attempts are being made to prevent women from being coerced into selling themselves, a form of modern-day slavery. OnlyFans promises women they can ‘cam’ from the privacy of their homes and do only what they want on camera. Yet the women who ‘cam’ have been stalked, assaulted, and are asked to do ever more explicit acts to get paid.
Rape kits are underfunded in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is the only jurisdiction in Pennsylvania that provides rape kit exams in a single building co-located with law enforcement. Pennsylvania law requires hospitals to provide rape care in the emergency room, but many don’t, so multiple Philadelphia health systems have received citations from the state health department for violating that policy.
Girls who have to allow boys in their bathrooms at school feel scared to try to attend to their hygiene needs. They’re afraid of being filmed or bullied for just being girls doing what girls need to do in a bathroom. Students have led walkouts over this in schools in Pennsylvania in protest.
Multiple non-profit organizations strive to shelter women escaping domestic violence, help women exit prostitution and escape human trafficking, assist rape survivors, speak out about online violence against women and girls, and pass legislation to curb minors’ access to violent pornography. Violence against women has been siloed into fragmented, disparate approaches. No one policymaker, nonprofit, or advocate alone is going to fix the enormity and complexity of male violence against women and girls.
It’s time to see the danger and act. WoLF is a national feminist organization dedicated to restoring, protecting, and advancing the sex-based rights of women and girls. We are responding to this crisis of male violence against women and girls!
Joining us in Philly?
We would love to have you!
Let us know if you’re coming! If you can, we’d appreciate you helping others see how vast and pervasive male violence is for women and girls.
If you want to share something about your personal experience with male violence, there’s also an open-ended question for you to share.